Troupe plans mystery, comedy and On Golden Pond

Wednesday

The Panhandle Players have been hard at work this summer reading plays to determine what they will be performing for the Franklin County community this upcoming season.

The Panhandle Players’ board of directors is pleased to announce the following as their 2013-14 season and to have three great directors for the shows.

On Nov. 15-17, “Any Number Can Die,” directed by Megan Lamb, a Panhandle Players veteran taking on the task of directing this murder mystery. Four ingenious murders take place in an island mansion as a pair of elderly detectives set to work on their first case. The ever popular storm, unexpected guests, cryptic poem, and missing fortune all add to the intricate and inventive mystery off which the laughs bounce.

The Feb. 2014 production of “Kitchen Witches” will be directed by Ann Cowles, who last directed “Island Lights” this summer on St. George Island. This hilarious show features two men and two women and is about cooking show hostesses who have hated each other for 30 years. When circumstances put them together on a TV show called “The Kitchen Witches,” the insults are flung harder than the food! The show becomes a rating smash as the two hostesses, Dolly and Isobel top both Martha Stewart and Jerry Springer! This production will be performed over two weekends both in Franklin and Gulf counties, Feb. 8-10 in Port St. Joe, and then Feb. 14-16 in Franklin County.

The acting troupe will round out the season on April 18-20 with the all-time classic, “On Golden Pond” directed by Pam Vest, who last directed “Tuna Christmas” in 2009.

This heart-warming production was turned into a movie in the early 80s and starred Henry Fonda and Katharine Hepburn in the love story of Ethel and Norman Thayer, who are returning to their summer home on Golden Pond for the 48th year. They are visited by their divorced, middle-aged daughter and her dentist fiancé, who then go off to Europe, leaving his teenage son behind for the summer.

The boy quickly becomes the "grandchild" the elderly couple have longed for, and as Norman revels in taking his ward fishing and thrusting good books at him, he also learns some lessons about modern teenage awareness - and slang - in return. In the end, as the summer wanes, so does their brief idyll, and in the final, deeply moving moments of the play, Norman and Ethel are brought even closer together by the incidence of a mild heart attack. Time, they know, is now against them, but the years have been good and, perhaps, another summer on Golden Pond still awaits.

“We are looking forward to a great season,” said Royce Rolstad III, president of the Panhandle Players. “The board of directors has been hard a working reading plays this summer and we are all thrilled with the three we have selected. It is going to be a fun season.”

For more information on auditioning or volunteering for any of the Panhandle Players productions, please like their Facebook page and contact them today.

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